(File Photo) Picture by: Salim Matramkot/The Peninsula
Doha: In a landmark move, Qatar has made residency procedure easier for expatriates workers headed to Qatar.
The Ministry of the Interior signed an agreement today with a Singapore based company, Biomet, to simplify the residency procedures of expatriate workers coming to Qatar by completing them at their home countries.
As per the agreement, those coming for work in Qatar can complete their medical checkup, record their bio-metric data and fingerprint and sign their work contracts at their home countries before coming to Qatar.
Once the procedure is done in native country, it will not be repeated in Qatar. The documents will be verified and checked at the Hamad International Airport on entry to Qatar.
The project will be implemented in its first phase in 8 countries - India, Nepal, SriLanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines and Tunisia - as the workers from these countries constitute 80% of total workforce in Qatar, Ministry of Interior said on Twitter.
The new system of completing residency visa procedures at the home countries of workers, will start within 4 months by opening the first of such centre in SriLanka and it will be followed by opening the centres in all other 7 countries.
Seven centres will be set up in India while 4 in Pakistan, 3 each in Bangladesh and Indonesia, 2 in Philippines and 1 each in SriLanka, Nepal and Tunisia to provide medical examination, bio-metric data capture and work contract signing for workers coming to Qatar.
The centres in the 8 countries will be monitored by the Ministry of Interior.
The centres in India will be located in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Bangalore and Kochi.
Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar in Pakistan.
Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet in Bangladesh.
Jakarta, Bandung and Semarang in Indonesia.
Colombo and Kathmandu in Sri Lanka and Nepal respectively.
Manila and Cebu in Philippines.
Tunis in Tunisia
